Part of the Weekend Never Dies

"The Beastie Boys famously used 50 cameras for their recent live DVD. AC/DC employed a helicopter. This film saw cult director Saam Farahmand record 120 shows on one camera, and it looks so much better...”

“A work of incredible art.” Time Out UK

"...this is a testament to Soulwax’ never-ending dedication to giving their fans the most worthy ‘morning afters’ of their lives.” Mag – Australia September, 9 2008

"The film pulses with kinetic live footage, schizophrenic montages and reflective interview segments, capturing the Radio Soulwax experience in all its explosive glory...” De Morgen – Belgium September, 1 2008

"Most original rockumentary since Meeting People Is Easy by Radiohead…”

Director Saam Farahmand filmed Soulwax on their recent international dates, capturing all the excitement, chaos and humour of the world tour. Where the Beastie Boys filmed one gig with 50 cameras, Soulwax filmed 120 shows with one camera, in Europe, Japan, US, Latin America and Australia. The result is a snapshot of life on the road with one of the most exciting live bands in the world, and features their friends including 2manydj's, James Murphy & Nancy Whang (LCD Soundsystem), Erol Alkan, Tiga, Justice, Busy P, So-Me, Peaches, Klaxons and many more in interview, as well as behind-the-scenes footage, and LOTS of music.

http://www.soulwax.com/potwnd/loop/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3tTGb-PiCw

Vote For Change

http://obeygiant.com/voteforchange/

The Runaways: Cherry Bomb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMDn6V7ZLhE

Universe

You are here.

Alek Wek

Supermodel Alex Wek has graced the catwalks of Chanel and Galliano, but her early life was marked by hardship growing up in Sudan.

You can see exactly why an alert scout collared her in a park in South London when she was 18, with the classic "you shall go to the ball" line, "Have you ever thought of modelling as a career?" Well, no, Alek hadn't.

In the first place because she had suffered from psoriasis (a skin condition) from infancy until she landed in England, aged 14, an exile from the Sudanese civil war, shivering in her one cotton dress and flip-flops.
(Perhaps because of the damp climate, her crippling 'lizard skin' condition cleared up almost overnight.)

And, secondly, she'd already seen too much hardship and grief - too much real life - to be impressed by glossy magazine glamour. But once she decided to give it a go, glamour engulfed her anyway.

She has modelled for everyone from Galliano to Chanel. Her covers include American Elle, her adverts Nars, Clarins and Revlon. Alek: Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel is the title of her new autobiography and it accurately sums up her story.
She has a toothy smile and genuine warmth; you'd have to be as sour as a dehydrated lemon not to like her. We are meeting in New York, in Brooklyn, close to where she now lives.

Though terrified by the Western practice of mortgaging, she obtained stability for the first time since she was a small child by buying a house here. After the purchase, Alek's redoubtable mother, Akuol, set forth to visit her, from Kilburn, North London.

"She came to bless the house but I know her: it was to see what community I was living in.

"Was it safe? She doesn't like travelling but she said, 'I am coming, OK?'

"Now all my neighbours ask, 'When is she coming back?'" A big chuckle.

Alek, now 30, was the first black model who didn't conform to a Caucasian aesthetic, the first with an uncompromising, sub-Saharan beauty. She belongs to the Dinka tribe and grew up in a small town called Wau in the south of the Sudan, the seventh of nine children.

"I thought we were middle class," she says, of her upbringing in a two-bedroom house without electricity or running water.
"But now, considering what middle class is in the West - wow! We were poor!"

She talks about her parents with huge affection. "My father made sure of discipline but my mum, she was serious business." Her 6ft 5in father, a civil servant, treated his womenfolk with a respect often lacking in African machismo, and promoted his daughter's confidence. "He walked me to school on my first day and I knew it was a special day because I had never gone somewhere just me and him."

But her sense of security crumbled in the war.

"It put people against each other. Suddenly, you couldn't look at your neighbour in the same way." She reaches for a Dinka metaphor, "It's like, one bad onion makes the whole sack smell awful.

"From nine years old, I lived with fear. I saw our neighbours disappearing.

"I was scared that I would come home from school and my parents would not be there. I still have dreams in which someone is coming to the door."
Teenage militias roared through the town, looting and killing as they blasted Michael Jackson's Thriller from their speakers. Bodies lay in the grass and rotted.

"Bones inside clothes. That was war to me."...

For Full Article...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/1AlekWekYOU_468x615.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/you/article-489840/I-went-hungry-fit-dress-I-refugee-says-model-Alex-Wek.html&h=615&w=468&sz=51&hl=en&start=20&um=1&usg=__tIy82pB6ZtcqngKkpUfRJjzTvm4=&tbnid=6RWEnDGwnf7AxM:&tbnh=136&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dalek%2Bwek%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

Mos Def: On Skateboarding

I have a big crush on Mos Def.

Mos Def recently took up skateboarding, and he's been preaching about the pastime in interviews, calling it "a beautiful thing" and a "great meditative vehicle." In summer 2006, he designed a series of skateboarding sneakers for Converse.

Burning The Future: Coal in America

36% of US global warming emissions comes from the approximately 501 coal-burning power plants that provide the nation with over half its electricity - more than all other sources combined.

Every eleven and one-half days, the explosive equivalent of the Hiroshima atomic bomb is unleashed upon the mountains of southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky - for coal.

In Burning the Future: Coal in America, writer/director David Novack examines the explosive forces that have set in motion a groundswell of conflict between the coal industry and residents of West Virginia. Confronted by an emerging coal-based US energy policy, local activists watch the nation praise coal without regard to the devastation caused by its extraction. Faced with toxic ground water, the obliteration of 1.4 million acres of mountains, and a government that appeases industry, our heroes demonstrate a strength of purpose and character in their improbable fight to arouse the nation's help in protecting their mountains, saving their families, and preserving their way of life.

"This compelling and timely film burns through the 'clean coal' rhetoric of industry front groups, showing the harsh truth of the coal story and urging us all to curb our energy use and rely more on clean energy to power our society." -Bruce Nilles, Director, National Coal CampaignSierra Club

"Burning the Future is a powerful and stirring account of the cultural and ecological impacts of an industry on its last legs - a testimony from the front-lines of resistance to coal." -Rebecca Tarbotton, Global Campaign DirectorRainforest Action Network

"...This moving and disturbing story adds the human element to a sanitized political debate by telling the dirty truth about coal in America. Burning the Future just might help us move politicians to solve global warming and our country's energy needs through clean power now."
-Pam Solo, Founder and PresidentCivil Society Institute

"Think your electricity usage doesn't matter? Think again! Novak's film enlivens the phrase 'think globally, act locally' as you journey with West Virginia residents in their courageous efforts to save their beloved mountains, communities and ultimately life on earth as we know it." -Janet Keating, Co-DirectorOhio Valley Environmental Coalition

http://www.burningthefuture.org/bios.cfm